Our times: New Orleans and the Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation, released by President Abraham Lincoln in preliminary form 150 years ago this week, was the culmination of years of movement toward eliminating the institution of slavery by the federal government.

The Emancipation Proclamation was released by President Abraham Lincoln in preliminary form 150 years ago this week.

Abolitionists had been urging Lincoln to abolish slavery outright, and military leaders were not sure what to do with the large numbers of runaway slaves who were showing up in military camps. By mid-1862, it was widely reported that the president was deliberating about how to end slavery.

Coming on the heels of the Confiscation Act of 1862, which liberated limited numbers of slaves, the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in parts of the Confederacy that were not in Union hands, starting Jan. 1, 1863.

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But occupied New Orleans and a handful of parishes were specifically exempted from the law. In fact, The Daily Picayune was still running notices seeking the capture of escaped slaves when the preliminary proclamation was issued, and the Union army routinely returned slaves to plantations.

On Sept. 23, 1862, The Daily Picayune reported that large numbers of residents were pledging their allegiance to the Union, a requirement to avoid the forfeiture of property under the Confiscation Act of 1862.

And 30 years before Homer Plessy boarded a rail car and set in motion a challenge of segregation laws that eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court, and just two days before the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, black New Orleanians boarded a streetcar reserved for white people, to the consternation of the Picayune.